Rathbone,’ Georgie said acidly. ‘You might have sweet-talked your big sister, but I always know when you’re lying.’
‘How do you reckon on that?’ Rat asked.
‘Because every filthy word out of your devil mouth is a lie.’
‘Maybe I should talk to my big sister about you,’ Rat grinned. ‘I sense a serious lack of respect for my elevated status.’
They reached the tunnel beneath the boarding school two minutes later. All of the kids were confined to their dorms because of the emergency. Lauren gave James a worried look, thinking she was about to be separated from the boys and sent off to her room with the Yellows. But Georgie had other plans and unlocked the door of an underground room.
It was a nursery, set up with cushions and toys. The dank space, which smelled like water paint and milk, was home to five kids whose parents worked inside the Ark but weren’t old enough to attend the school upstairs. There were no other adults around and Georgie had simply locked them away, under threat of a good paddling if they misbehaved.
‘I don’t want you three running off again,’ Georgie explained. ‘You can stay here, where I can keep my eye on you.’
A cute little girl holding a comfort blanket had strolled up alongside Georgie and tugged at her trousers. ‘Miss, Michael took my pacifier.’
Georgie glowered down at the girl. ‘I’m not your nursemaid, Annabel,’ she growled. ‘Find another one or go without.’
The little girl scowled at a plastic tub on a high shelf. ‘Can’t reach that.’
Georgie wagged her finger. ‘I’m not in the mood to put up with your shit tonight, Annabel. Do you want a whack on the arse?’
The little girl’s face crinkled up like she was about to cry, but she reconsidered when Georgie raised a threatening hand.
Lauren intervened, crouching down and smiling at the toddler. ‘Why don’t you show me where the box is?’
Georgie grabbed Lauren’s T-shirt and dragged her back. ‘If you’re gonna start playing with the little ones, don’t wind them up. It’s late and it does my head in when they start screaming and chasing around.’
Lauren nodded politely. ‘OK, Miss.’
‘I’m going upstairs for a smoke,’ Georgie said, scowling at James and Rat. ‘Behave yourselves, or there’s gonna be blood and snot all over the place when I get back here.’
Georgie backed out of the nursery, slamming the metal door and turning the key in the lock.
40. TIME
Eve was in the top bunk with her eyes closed, but Dana doubted she was asleep. Who’d be able to, an hour and a half before you were supposed to climb into a little boat and blow up a couple of supertankers?
Dana threw back her duvet, quietly grabbed her cargo shorts off the floor and was slipping her socked feet inside trainers when the boat hit a huge wave, knocking the back of her head against the frame of the upper bunk.
Eve’s eyes flicked open. ‘Oooh I heard that,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah. It sounded worse than it felt,’ Dana said, as she tried rubbing away the pain.
‘Why are you getting dressed, it’s not time is it?’
‘No, I need the loo again.’
Eve sounded confused. ‘You don’t need to get dressed for that.’
‘I guess,’ Dana said. ‘It’s just being on a boat I suppose … With Barry around and that.’
‘That’s at least the fifth time you’ve been. Are you OK?’
‘My stomach always goes crazy whenever I’m nervous,’
Dana lied. ‘Last year, the morning before my exams, I must have gone about twenty times.’ ‘Maybe we should pray,’ Eve said. ‘Thinking about God always helps me to relax.’ Dana stood up. ‘We’ll pray when I get back. How about you, are you nervous?’
‘I just hope I can live up to God’s expectations,’ Eve said. ‘Nina said they might name a room inside one of the new Arks after us. Can you believe that?’
This kind of Survivor speak made Dana nuts. In Eve’s head, a platinum bead and a room named after you inside an Ark meant more than six numbers on the lottery.
As Eve slumped back on to her pillow, Dana took three steps down a narrow corridor and slid a bolt across the bathroom door behind her. She raised the lid and sat down to pee, but that wasn’t the reason behind this visit to the bathroom, or any of her previous excursions out of her bunk.
Dana opened the cupboard under the sink and began pulling out the stash she’d gathered on her wanderings around the boat: a key, a